Review of Resident Evil: Afterlife (2010) by Halfwelshman — 01 Feb 2012

Resident Evil: Afterlife doesn't quite restore the series to the same level of fun as the first film was, but at least it's a step back in the right direction. The stunts and effects are more polished than ever, and there are some extremely entertaining set-pieces (and pleasingly, one of these set-pieces, with survivors desperately defending an abandoned prison against a seemingly endless horde of zombies takes up a good portion of the film).

Milla Jovovich appears to still be having fun in her role as series protagonist Alice, and mercifully, writer/director Paul W S Anderson eventually saw sense and chose to remove her ridiculous super powers, and instead give her a seriously cool tool of destruction to wield (who'd have thought spare change could be so deadly?).

Wentworth Miller and Boris Kodjoe are both perfectly competent in their roles, and Shawn Roberts makes a much better big baddie Albert Wesker than Jason O'Mara did in Extinction. Despite the improvements from parts 2 and 3, Afterlife still has its fair share of problems.

The plot is still ridiculous, the film world full of inconsistencies and the script more wooden and laborious than hauling a wardrobe through an antique furniture shop. An over-indulgence of the 3-D gimmick is also extremely annoying - I don't think Wesker's trademark sunglasses spinning towards your waiting eye sockets would have looked that impressive on the big screen, never mind on DVD! So it's still a thoroughly uneven affair, but at least the fourth Resident Evil film doesn't seem to be taking itself too seriously.

And that's lucky, because if it was, then it'd be mocked to within an inch of its afterlife (see what I did there?).